TVW tells Constantine to stop using footage

TVW, the non-profit television station that broadcasts public affairs programming in Washington state, has asked Dow Constantine’s King County executive campaign to pull an ad that features video from the station.

The video is from the Oct. 1, 2008 coverage of the Washington Policy Center’s annual dinner. Constantine’s opponent, Susan Hutchison, spoke at the event for the business think tank.

“The Dow Constantine campaign is currently broadcasting a political ad that blatantly misuses TVW programming,” TVW President and Chief Executive Officer Greg Lane said in a statement. “The citizens of Washington trust TVW to provide unedited and unbiased access to public policy events. Editing and using our programming for political ads both violates that public trust and puts at tremendous risk the public’s access to these events.
Yesterday, I spoke directly to representatives of the Constantine campaign, requesting that the offending ad be pulled from the air immediately. This morning, the campaign’s lawyers responded that the Constantine campaign is refusing to abide by our request. We are disappointed with their response, which completely ignores the public interest and the tradition of respect maintained for TVW’s unique role….By refusing to pull the offending ad, the Dow Constantine campaign is showing complete disregard for the greater public interest role TVW plays in providing citizens unbiased and unedited access to the public policy process.”

At the event, Hutchison urged attendees to read the center’s book, “The Policy Guide for Washington State.” Constantine’s campaign says the book touts conservative ideology at odds with how Hutchison has tried to portray herself.

Sandeep Kaushik, Constantine’s campaign spokesman, said the campaign has the legal right to use the footage under the “fair use” doctrine.

“We understand (TVW’s) concern, but there’s a larger public interest here,” Kaushik said. “We’re not talking about footage of official government business, legislative proceedings or a gubernatorial press conference or something of that nature. TVW decided to cover a fundraising event where Susan Hutchison made statements of obvious public interest. They then allowed that footage to be posted on that organization’s Web site for promotional purposes, without complaint. So it seems a little bizarre that the WPC would be allowed to use TVW to promote themselves and Susan Hutchison but then (TVW) would have a concern about us using the comments made that are obvious interest to the people to the King County.”

In an interview Lane said at least two groups had used TVW’s work in political commercials before and one stopped using the material when asked. He said its generally recognized that TVW footage is “off limits.”

“All of the organizations have kind of respected that,” he said. “On both sides. Our concern is that if he doesn’t pull the ad down it sets a precedent…Our biggest concern is if our footage is edited and used in this way, the access we have to covering these events could be restricted.”